JANAKI AMMAL Vs. ALAGAR KOTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant herein is the decree-holder in O. S. No. 575 of 1972 and he obtained a decree in the said suit on 9th March, 1973. THE respondent herein who is the judgment-debtor, filed an application on 25th December, 1973, for amendment of the decree and for scaling down the debt under section 15 (1) of Tamil Nadu Debt Relief Act (XXXVIII of 1972) hereinafter referred to as the Act), which had been published on 16th December, 1972. THE said application was resisted by the decree-holder contending that the judgment-debtor is not a debtor as defined in the Act and therefore, he is not entitled to claim the benefits of the Act and the decree is is not liable to be scaled down.

(2.) THE Court below held that the lespondent-judgment-debtor was a debtor as defined in the Act and therefore, he is entitled to maintain the application under section 15 (1) of the Act for amendment of the decree and for scaling down the debt. THE decision of the Court below has been challenged in this appeal by the appellant, who is the decree-holder on the ground that the application having been filed by the judgment-debtor more than six months after the date of the publication of the Act, the same should be taken to be barred by time. Though this point does not appear to have been raised before the Court below, the point being one related to limitation, the same has to be considered by this Court.

(3.) CONSTRUING the same provision, Balasubrahmanyan, J. in an unreported decision, Annamalai v. Saraswathi Ammal2, held, differing from N. S. Ramaswami, J. that the normal construction of the provision does not make a distinction or discrimination between an application filed by a judgment-debtor and an application filed by a decree-holder and the absence of a comma cannot be relied on for imputing any such discrimination to the Legislature.